


cast your eyes to heaven (you get a knife in the back)

by sometimeseffable



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: AU where Crowley doesn't survive the Apocalypse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale travels the nine circles of hell, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Whump (Good Omens), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Inspired by Hadestown, Or does he, dante's inferno, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:20:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22353247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sometimeseffable/pseuds/sometimeseffable
Summary: When Adam banishes his infernal father back to Hell, Satan grabs ahold of Crowley and drags him down. Nine years later, Aziraphale finds a way to bring him back.--“I’ll find you!” Aziraphale yelled, “Wait for me. I’m coming!”Crowley’s eyes were wide with terror, yellow iris blown all the way through the whites. There was so much to say; there was no time.“I love - “And then he was ripped away as Aziraphale screamed for him. In a split second, the portal to Hell was closed. Satan was gone.So was Crowley.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 64





	cast your eyes to heaven (you get a knife in the back)

**Author's Note:**

> * will denote lines either taken directly or derived from lyrics from Hadestown

On Saturday morning, an angel stood near the pond in St. James’ Park. 

The angel tossed a lackluster handful of frozen peas into the water. Aziraphale, Principality of Earth and former servant of Heaven, was not a fan of Saturdays. Hadn’t been going on for nearly ten years now, for more reasons than one. Namely, the events of the Saturday the world ended.

But, as with everything in life, one got on with it. He’d been getting tea with Ms. Marjorie Potts (formerly Madame Tracy) every Sunday since the End. The pair had found they had quite a bit in common after sharing a body for the better part of two hours, and had struck up an odd yet warm friendship since. Sunday tea invitations had been extended to Thursdays in the past year, ever since Sergeant Shadwell had passed last January. Marjorie had been heartbroken, but unsurprised.

“It was all that condensed milk[1],” she’d confided tearfully over a pot of darjeeling, “I kept telling him, love, it’s not meant to be kept under the cupboard like that, but of course he didn’t listen until we shacked up together. Didn’t make much of a difference, in the end. Oh, I miss the old rascal something dreadful. But nevermind an old woman, dear, how have you been?”

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Aziraphale wandered over to Berwick Street to visit the little pagan apothecary set up by Anathema. She and Newton had settled in London not long after the Them had left for uni. Anathema found herself thriving in the fast-paced business models of a busy commerce center, while Newt finally found a job he could sustain (so long as he kept away from the register). Their little girl, Minerva, was all of three and growing fast. A sweet, chubby, darling child with her mother’s temperament and her father’s penchant for destroying electronics. 

Minerva loved her “Unca Zaza” dearly, as evidenced by the delighted squeal that rang through the shop as the expected sweet or small toy was pulled from behind her ear. 

“You’re getting better at that,” Anathema would say, not-smiling in that way of hers that meant she was getting concerned again, “How are things going? Newt’s making a cornish hen, if you’d like to stay for supper. We can...talk, after. Are you eating again?”

Tuesdays were less hectic, though debatably quieter. Adam, whip-smart and charismatic to boot, was studying political sciences and theology[2] at Cambridge. The twenty-year-old former antichrist made a point to drop by the bookshop once a week, and this term he had Tuesdays off from class. He and his lovely boyfriend, Jonathan, were the only humans in the history of the shop allowed to peruse the stacks with the intention of borrowing books. Aziraphale would make them tea as they sat in the back room studying, chatting quietly in between historical questions and theological queries.

“I mean, Hell, yeah, but I didn’t think _this_ part’d be real,” Adam mentioned off-hand, halfway through a first edition of Dante’s _Inferno._ In Italian, of course. A boy of many talents. “I mean, might be useful one day, huh? Oh, one sec, I think Jon’s back with the coffees...”

Aziraphale pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. Crowley had always made fun of the useless things, and Aziraphale had taken to wearing them in the hopes that one day the demon would saunter in his shop and say, _you’ve got 20/20 vision, angel, what’s with the glasses?_ And Aziraphale could then whip the frames off dramatically before tackling him in an embrace.

It had yet to work. The bookshop had remained free of any demonic presence for nearly a decade. 

“ _You’re not my dad!” The antichrist delivered his final blow, “You never were.”_

_The air rang with power as Adam Young denounced his unearthly farth._

_“No,” Satan gasped, “No, no, no, noooo!”_

_It was over; Adam had done it. He’d beaten the odds, saved the world, stopped the War to End All Wars._

_And then it all went to shit._

_Satan howled as a more powerful magic tugged at his essence, the infernal whims of an eleven-year-old boy reversing the orders of his birth. As he was banished back to Hell, Satan locked eyes with Crowley. A clawed hand beckoned._

_Crowley fell to the ground on hands and knees, an invisible force pulling him forward. He scrabbled for purchase on the tarmac._

_“Wha - ngk! Wait!”_

“ _Crowley!” Aziraphale caught hold of his outstretched hand, mortally terrified yet again for the third time today. Guardian of the Eastern Gate wasn’t a title Upstairs just handed out, though. Aziraphale was strong, and managed to pull Crowley to his feet, though with no small struggle._

_“I’ve got you,” Aziraphale assured him, “Never fear, I’ve - “_

_Satan growled a horrible, gut wrenching growl. Crowley yelled in alarm as he was pulled off the ground, legs kicking wildly in the air behind him. The only thing tethering him to this plane was Aziraphale’s iron grip on his hand._

_And it was slipping._

_“Angel!”_

_Aziraphale’s own feet slid along the asphalt from the force dragging Crowley away. Behind him, the angel felt someone grab his other arm, keeping him from being taken as well. He didn’t care to look; all that mattered was Crowley, and the fear writ plain across his face._

_Their fingers slid, til the only thing holding Crowley to earth was their fingertips hooked onto each other._

_“I - “ Teeth bared, pale as death, Crowley had never looked so desperate, so afraid, “I don’t want to go.”_

_“I’ll find you!” Aziraphale yelled, “Wait for me. I’m coming!”_

_Crowley’s eyes were wide with terror, yellow iris blown all the way through the whites. There was so much to say; there was no time._

_“I love - “_

_And then he was ripped away as Aziraphale screamed for him. In a split second, the portal to Hell was closed. Satan was gone._

_So was Crowley._

A large black duck quacked indignantly at him. Aziraphale shook himself free from his dark reverie with a sigh.

“Now, now,” said the angel, flicking a frozen pea gently into the water, “There’s certainly enough for everyone.”

Satisfied, the duck glided gracefully away, to be reunited with a small white companion. Aziraphale crisply folded the half-empty bag of peas and tucked them in his pocket. They’d keep, as he expected them to.

Saturday also meant it’d been a full 48-hours since Thursday, which meant a trip to Mayfair was in order. As he meandered down the familiar path, grey clouds drifted in front of the sun. Looked like rain was in store today. Aziraphale turned his coat collar up against the sudden wind.

Somewhere deep in his coat pockets, his ancient mobile buzzed. Most likely it was Marjorie, inquiring where they were meeting tomorrow afternoon. He ignored it.

There was a garage attached to the flat complex that hadn’t existed before 2018; Aziraphale couldn’t bring himself to glance in its direction. He did not have a key to the most expensive flat in Mayfair, but the snake-shaped handle on the front door let him in anyway. Inside was dark and smelled musty with disuse. The click of his oxfords echoed hauntingly back and forth between the concrete walls. He picked up the miracled-full plant mister from the side table and turned the corner.

“Hello, there,” Aziraphale cooed. A wild tangle of plants and vince greeted him, like a scene straight from a nature documentary on the Amazon (or, rather, what was left of it) _._ Thick green leaves burst in unruly clusters from their cracked planters; liana ran willy-nilly across the floor, up the walls, the ceiling. Not a single iota of order was to be found in the vermillion chaos. 

“Chin up, lads,” he murmured between generous spritzes of water, “Oh, you’re looking very well, aren’t you? Yes, just lovely. Oh, he’d be very proud, you know.”

At this, the plants trembled. Not what one might call fearful trembling, though. More the sad whine of a dog whose master has moved on, yet doesn’t understand where they went or when they’ll be back. Aziraphale stroked the wide leaf of a monstera with a heavy sigh.

“Very proud indeed,” he muttered to himself. 

His mobile buzzed again. Once more, Aziraphale ignored it. Marjorie did not double text, so he assumed it was Anathema with another generous invitation to dinner. Poor dear worried herself too much. 

_Aziraphale stared at the spot where a gaping hole had been just moments ago. Other than the faint whiff of sulfur, there was nothing to suggest a portal to Hell of any sort had existed on the airbase tarmac. Nothing to suggest where Crowley had gone, or if he was coming back._

_Distantly, he realized someone was shaking his arm. The same someone who had grabbed him and held on for dear life despite the threat of being sucked to Hell._

_The American woman with the bicycle was staring at him, dark brows knit. She hadn’t let go of his arm. Brave of her._

_Are you okay?”_

_Aziraphale swallowed, bereft. “I think...I think I lost my…”_

_My nemesis. My best friend. My love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name._

_Crowley was gone._

_"Come on,” the American woman said, pulling him gently away. Adam Young’s father was scolding the not-antichrist, but the boy stared at them as they left, “I think we should talk.”_

The rain had started by the time he left. A cold, wet drizzle to match his mood, which darkened by the minute. Aziraphale kept his clammy hands clenched deep in his pockets, fingers brushing the flip-style mobile Adam had insisted on getting him. Crowley would have laughed himself sick upon seeing the completely-uncool model Aziraphale picked out. It wasn’t that he didn’t _have_ any modern technological gadgets hidden in the shop[3]. More so that they had been gifts, and had been left to collect dust in their cupboard for fear of damaging them.

Rain fell in earnest sheets by the time the angel made it back home. Immediately, his senses tingled with the overt feeling of something _wrong._ He then noticed that the door handle was slightly ajar. Preternaturally good eyesight picked up on the faint glow of light emanating from the backroom, which had been unlit when he’d left. Carefully, Aziraphale let himself into the shop as the sword of War blazed to life in his hands, called from the aether.

Heaven had sent plenty of angels in the first year after he defied their Great Plan with the intention of bringing him to justice. Each one had been methodically and dispassionately dispatched from their corporeal forms in a clear message. He hadn’t heard from them since Camael’s botched assassination attempt at Adam’s twelfth birthday party[4], but it didn’t hurt to be careful. 

Sword raised, ready to strike, Aziraphale rounded the corner to his study - 

And was met with a devilish glare. 

Adam Young said, “You weren’t answering your mobile.”

The words landed flat. Aziraphale dropped his defensive position in exasperation.

“Oh, for - Adam! Dear boy, I could have injured you!”

“You wouldn’t’ve,” Adam replied in that calm, self-assured way he had. Former antichrist or not, there was still something a bit celestial about him. He _knew_ things, in the way mediums and racehorse betters could only dream of. It could be rather annoying.

“Be that as it may,” Aziraphale said snottily, vanishing the sword back into the aether, “I gave you a key for emergencies, not so you could give me a heart attack in my own home.”

“You’re immortal. You can’t have a heart attack. _And_ you weren’t answering your mobile. What else was I s’pposed to do?”

“I _told_ him it wasn’t a good plan,” Jonathan piped up, “Sorry, Mr. Fell.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Look, do we wanna keep discussing the semantics of burglering, or can I tell you my plan to save Crowley?”

Very few words could knock the breath from an angel like a punch to the gut[5]. This was one of them.

“Your…”

The look in Adam’s devilish blue eyes was sharp, serious, and above all, confident. “It’s a longshot. But I think it could work.”

He held out a scrap of paper - achingly familiar, brown with age and blacked at the edges from having crisped in a burning bookshop years ago. Aziraphale didn’t need to look to know the words inked in pen across his heart: _with muse's song and Raven scribe’s mapeth, the und'r path shall beest cleareth._ Agnes Nutter’s final prophecy, the burnt slip having fallen from her book when Crowley tossed it to Anathema. 

It had been a clue, obviously. Aziraphale had never been sure of what until this very moment.

Adam Young said, “Have you heard of the tale of Orpheus?”

* * *

[1] Condensed milk, and the unholy amount of cigarettes the man had consumed in his lifetime.

[2] His parents had been rather surprised at his choice, considering Adam had never been one for organized religion, but Aziraphale thought it an excellent idea to know one’s circumstances of birth.

[3] They had started as genuine attempts by Crowley to get Aziraphale to join the modern age, and ended up as a running joke. Aziraphale was always particularly confused by the watch which was also an apple.

[4] The ordeal had involved a ruined cake, four young children with baseball bats, and one near-smiting. A story for another time.

[5] A slip of vellum with the words “holy water” came to mind

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Only after finishing the first two chapters of this and sketching the other three did I learn that there is at least [one other fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19096543)that is very similar to this idea in terms of the Orpheus myth and Dante's Inferno usage. I can promise I had no idea this existed and did not copy ideas from it (and still have yet to read it ) but I put this note here because ya girl has anxiety :)  
> Thank you for reading! I'm very excited about posting this, so if you have thoughts please let me know in the comments!


End file.
